


A Leader's Burden

by blublu



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 23:12:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3429050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blublu/pseuds/blublu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What was an already shitty situation had just gone way worse.<br/>Because, losing Clarke didn’t only meant that she had lost her best ally among the Skaikru but also that they now had leverage to end this war. It meant that the decision she would have to make now would be incredibly difficult to take. She needed to get Clarke back as soon as possible."</p><p>Clarke is abducted by the Mountain Men. Read intro please.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Leader's Burden

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THIS. 
> 
> First and foremost I want to tell you about how I see fanfiction so that you know what to expect from my story. Nowadays, it seems to me that fanfiction is more about what you would want to see happen on a show rather than about creating stories inspired by characters that have already been created. That’s why I don’t write graphic sex scenes. It seems that fanfiction is about unloading how you feel about a ship at the risk of sacrificing your plot or even not having one at all. Not that there is anything wrong with it, I don’t publish stories like that is all. When I put a fanfiction out there it means I have thought deeply about a plot. It means I have tried to understand completely how the writers intended the characters psychology in order to respect that the most faithfully I could. Basically, I put myself in the shoes of the writers and try to continue part of the plot while still trying to bring some of my own creativity. So there you go, I hope you will still enjoy my story.  
> Regarding the characters thoughts, I purposefully decided to make it as a viewer's experience in a TV show. Meaning you just get the actions and you have to interpret what the characters could be thinking. That is to a certain extent of course as I reveal more about some characters than others. For exemple, to me, it's harder to get into Lexa's head as she does not allow herself to feel than Clarke.  
> One last thing, English is not my first language so I am so terribly sorry about my lack of vocabulary and if you're interested in beta reading me, you would do me a huge favor.

I started writing this before 2x13, this is what happens a few days after from my perspective.  
For the story’s purposes, Indra is considered alive. Marcus isn’t.  
Here is her last scene in 2x12:  
“-Indra: Where’s the commander? Where is Clarke?  
Marcus:I don’t know last time, I saw them, they were heading down the stairs.  
Indra: They’re not there now.  
Marcus:We should search the woods.  
Indra: I agree.  
Marcus: I’ll tell the others.”  
After that, Marcus heads to the center of Tondc while Indra goes directly into the woods, escaping the bombing by a few seconds .Everyone in the village died.  
Lexa woke up bruised and battered in the middle of the woods. Her head was sore but she was immediately in alert. She looked around her and whispered “No…”. She hardly got up on her feet and said “No, no, no!”.  
Where is she? They can’t…

“NO!”

What was an already shitty situation had just gone way worse.  
Because, losing Clarke didn’t only meant that she had lost her best ally among the Skaikru but also that they now had leverage to end this war. It meant that the decision she would have to make now would be incredibly difficult to take. She needed to get Clarke back as soon as possible.

An hour later she was back in Tondc. “Heda, what happened?!” a grounder said. Abby took her in charge quickly. She knew that she would very likely have to put up with Abby now, since as the Skaikru’s Chancellor she was next in line to enter the alliance. Since the beginning, Abby had been quite hostile towards her. Always blaming her for actions she and Clarke took together. But now everything had changed. Now they had to work together to get Clarke back.  
“What happened?”  
“They took her. One second there was fog, then I woke up alone. ”  
She flipped a light into her eyes blinding her while Lexa protested a little. She had a concussion. Abby advised rest knowing very well that her advice would be dismissed.

Lexa lowered her head while Abby was tidying her tools. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you tried to protect her. They used soporific gas, Lexa. It’s a chemical that messes you up. You couldn’t do anything.”

Lexa saw the images flashing before her eyes. The white cloud surrounding them. Clarke’s eyes closing themselves while her head was tilting backwards. Everything going black while she couldn’t breathe. But she suddenly remembered, drawing her sword and slashing the smoke around her. She quickly took a look at her sword and saw blood on it.  
Abby and Lexa looked at each other knowing what it meant.

An hour later, the woods had been swiped and a Mountain man had been found on the verge of death. He was put in Raven’s airlock, and Abby had managed to keep him barely alive. He was burnt all over and his arm had to be cut off. Lexa had slashed him so bad that his limb had almost been completely detached from his body. She didn’t need to interrogate him to know what the Mountain Men’s purposes for kidnapping Clarke were. She was probably meant to be kidnapped too, beheading the Alliance completely was a very logical plan.

 

They had learned that Bellamy had been spotted and locked up in the morning. Clarke had asked Lexa to speak with her outside camp before the Counsel was held. That’s when she had been captured.

The War Counsel meeting was still held. With Abby, Indra as her second and all of the replacing Commanders of the 12 clans.

Without Clarke.  
“Things have changed, as you know. Clarke of the Sky people, was abducted today. The situation is quite critical. Our assets in Mount Weather are under siege as the uprising has been contained, they are on level 5 but they won’t resist for long. Especially since Clarke could be used as leverage to make them back down. These are the last news we got from the inside. Bellamy seems to have been separated from the other sky people, we don’t know where he is but he has been captured. We no longer have the advantage of the inside spies. Both camps are now in an overt war. It is likely that they will try to abduct more of us.  
Now, we have two choices. Either we back down and try to defend ourselves and limit our casualties as we took big blows in a few days. Or we keep attacking, we come up with another plan and we count on the surprise effect. They are not expecting us now. They think they put us down.” Lexa said leaning on the table, her palms spread apart.  
The Counsel led to a dead end. Of course they had to stand down, they had nothing to attack Mount Weather with.  
They were cornered. How could they get out of this? They couldn’t even communicate with their inside army. Would they back down if the Mountain Men threatened to kill Clarke and Bellamy? If they didn’t would they still kill them? They lacked time.  
Indra came inside Lexa’s tent saying: “The Mountain Man has talked.”  
Their plan was to use Bellamy and Clarke to make the 47 surrender. If they did not, they would use them to have information on how to defeat them in the most efficient way because they knew the 47 would have to surrender anyway.  
They just had to cross their fingers for the 47 not to back down at least until they had something to fight with.  
Lexa had never lived longer hours. She was always walking around in her tent trying to evaluate ther options. Wondering what was happening to Clarke, was she even still alive? Were they torturing her ? Before going back to trying to find solutions because the sooner she had one, the best Clarke’s chances to be alive were.  
The other commanders quickly started losing patience as the Mountain Men started overtly kidnapping people and the security had to be increased to its maximum. They barricaded the camps and the guards were everywhere. But that constant state of insecurity made the people very tense and a few fights had had to be broken down. Cohabitation between Grounders and Skaikru in a small space was harder and harder.  
Lexa was under more and more pressure as the other commanders wanted to attack even though the acid fog would likely cause extreme casualties. They said that this position could not be stood for very long.

 

A few days had passed when Raven finally came to see Lexa.  
“Hum. I may have something that could help us win the war.”  
O o o o o O  
“When the missile landed on Tondc, it didn’t completely exploded. Otherwise, you’d be dead Lexa.”  
“Continue.”  
“I’ve managed to find the wastes of the missile and it turned out that I could save part of it to make a new, smaller one. Basically it’s a small bomb that you have to activate yourself like…”  
“Like the one you used to stop our attack on the bridge.” 

Lexa breathed out.  
“Thank you.  
I’ll demand a meeting for the Counsel for tomorrow. Be there.”

O o o o o O

“NO WAY. We have no idea where Clarke and Bellamy are, we could be blowing them up.” Abby said.

“Why wouldn’t we sacrifice two persons for the sake of hundreds of persons?” Indra said. A few Grounders looked at each other nodding.  
“This is my daughter we are talking about!”  
“You can’t win a war without sacrifices!” This time all grounders started talking to each other in trigadeslang. “Em ste tru” “emo branwada Skaikru”  
“Em pleni!” Lexa said .“This isn’t about who we save; it’s about how many we save.” Her heart squeezed as she said that.  
“Raven, are you sure of where to put this bomb to allow us to get in and take advantage of the chaos?”  
“Well, even if someone gets into the fortress and detonates the bomb, it will still not be easy. Mount Weather is built in depth, we have to take each level one by one. But it will definitely help our people on the inside if we know where to put it.”  
“I already knew that Raven. What I am asking is do you know where to put it?”  
“Well… The plan was to ask Bellamy and the others but since they haven’t been answering and I only have a vague idea of how it’s built…”  
“We have to be sure Raven, this is our only shot!”  
“Well I thought that maybe, if someone got inside and found the 47, maybe they would know where to put it.”  
“That means that that person would have to get through 5 levels! It’s impossible.”  
“Not if I can’t deactivate their source of electricity… Look I’ve been studying their dam. If we can send a team there to simultaneously deactivate the dam for a few minutes and make our inside man join our level 5 team, we could actually do this.”  
“There are far too many unknown variables in your plan Raven!” Abby said. “Blowing this thing up could make the whole thing collapse and kill everybody inside.”  
“And we would still win the war.” the Commander of the Sea Clan said. He was supported by other Grounders.  
“I’m sorry, are we sure to have the same goals here?!” Replied Abby.  
“Raven what are the odds of accidentally making Mount Weather collapse?” Lexa said.  
“Well as I said I am not sure about how it’s built, it seems like the levels aren’t dependent but it’s still a possibility I’m not sure…”  
“There we go again. This plan is full of uncertainties, we can’t do this!” Abby said.  
“If your daughter wasn’t part of the causalities, you would be the one pushing this plan!” the Commander of the Ice Nation said. Most of the Grounders in the room supported her and said “yeah”, “she is right” or things in trigadeslang.  
“Everyone out! I want to talk to Abby. Now.” Lexa said.

 

“I know how you care about your daughter. I do too. I will do everything I can to get her back but the other Clans don’t need to know that. They see it as weakness.”  
“Why aren’t you stopping this plan? She’s gonna get killed, you know it!”  
“Because that’s what she would want. Because if she was here with us, she would want us to at least try. We may never have an opportunity like that.”

Abby stayed quiet.  
“If it can reassure you. I will be the one blowing up the bomb.”  
“What? The others will never let you…”  
“I am their Commander, they will have to accept it. And the other Clans see me as too powerful, they will gladly let me risk my life. It is also my duty to put myself before my people.”  
Abby looked down. She marched towards the exit when Lexa said “Abby, can you bring Octavia on our side please?”  
O o o o o O

Octavia rushed into Lexa’s tent. 

“You can’t do this alone.”  
She corrected herself as Indra would have wanted her to “Commander.”.  
Lexa was leaning over the table, checking her route once again.  
“Please.”  
Lexa looked at Octavia to see her begging with her eyes.  
“I know you care about her.”

Lexa looked away, clenched her jaws.

“Just like I care about my brother. Let me come, please.”  
Lexa stood back and passed back Octavia while dropping a little “Fine.”  
O o o o o O

It was dark. The sun had landed a few hours ago.  
They got the signal from Indra and the army of the 4 Clans attacking the dam that it was off.  
No acid fog was released as they approached the main doors, that was a good sign. They gave out a little whistling as they opened. Lexa and Octavia each took one of the frames of the doors to pull. As they got in the airlock, the guards started firing but the doors were bullet proof. Octavia and her opened the second pair of doors and quickly disarmed the guards in Hazmat suit.

They didn’t have much time. They got into the elevator and kicked off the trapdoor.  
“Now what Raven?” said Octavia to the radio.  
“Now you need to sabotage their elevating system. There should be a big wheel if you follow the cables upwards. Put something between the wheel and the cables. Then you should be able to sneak between the elevator and the wall and hold on to the cables to go to the fifth floor.”

O o o o o O  
Octavia pulled out the doors to see a dozen of guns pointed at her.  
“Hey guys!”  
O o o o o O  
They hadn’t surrendered when the Mountain Men threatened to kill Clarke and Bellamy. But they had no idea if they actually did kill them.  
“If you put the bomb right there, you should be able to blow up their whole system. It’s like the headquarters. If we’re lucky enough, Dante’s son will be in there.” Monty said.

“Ok. Thank you.” Lexa said looking at her bag where the bomb was.  
“Wait.” Jasper said, holding Lexa’s forearm. “You go look for Clarke and Bellamy. They could be alive somewhere. We’re gonna blow this thing up. I never liked their preppy style anyways.”  
Lexa thanked him with a little smile.

Octavia went looking for her brother on level 7 with a few Sky persons. Some others including Monty and Jasper took care of the bomb. Others started clearing the way out and helping the grounders’ army get inside. Finally, one last group went freeing the Grounders in cages and contain the Reapers.

Lexa was on her own now.  
O o o o o O  
The sky people had told her that her best bet was on level 9. The last level.  
She went all the way down here and when she pulled out the doors in the elevator, ready to fight, she only found empty corridors. There were only four doors.  
She walked in carefully, hands contorted on her two swords, muffling the sound of her steps completely. She leaned on the wall next to the first door and passed swiftly only to see what she was expecting in there.  
She breathed out and kicked the door open. There were 3 armed gunmen, in Hazmat suits. They immediately started firing at her. She quickly disarmed the first gunman to use him as a shield, while she was reaching for her daggers. She threw them right into the gunmen’s head, killing them instantly. Then slit her shield’s throat only to throw him on the floor after. She picked up her daggers. One of the guards still had his gun in his hand. It looked like what the Sky people were using. She had seen how deadly it was. And useful in long range too. Her people were afraid of those. But she knew better and picked it up.  
All of a sudden, there were more Mountain men. She hoped behind a table and started pulling the trigger on the device. It made an explosion noise and the wood on the door exploded. It was like this device was commanding explosions wherever you pointed it at. She stood up and moved towards the wall to reveal a gunman hiding behind the door frame. He saw her but it was too late. His throat exploded.  
She definitely liked swords better, it was more predictable and reliable. And it was her people’s way.  
She moved towards the door, put the cold gun in her back between her belt and her skin, shivering at the coldness of the device. She drew her sword and waited for the second gunman to try and get in. When his armed arms got into the room, she slashed them swiftly, making him scream in horror. She grabbed his head and broke his neck to make him stop. She got outside, holding the gun just as she saw Clarke doing it. One of the doors were open, she guessed it was where the guards were coming from. There was nothing in there. Only a white room with a bed and a few furniture.  
She got in the third room, starting to lose her patience. That’s why she didn’t see the fourth gunman that put a bullet through her ribs.  
A second later, she heard an explosion. Not like the ones the devices were making. A big, louder one. She knew. The ground started moving under her feet, she held onto the door frame when the whole room disappeared under an avalanche of dust, concrete and dirt, taking everyone with it. The corridors’ floor was now at a 10° angle and the alarm system was to break her eardrums.  
Where the hell was Clarke?  
Then, she saw her. Getting out of her room, looking everywhere and finally to Lexa. Everything slowed down.

“Lexa?”

 

The Grounder Queen erased the space between them, and pulled Clarke in a tight hug. How happy she was to feel Clarke’s heart beating against hers, to feel her soft hair under her fingers, to feel her breathing down her neck.  
She whispered in her ear, “Let’s get out of here.” While pulling away.  
As they spread apart, Clarke held a bloody hand up.  
“You’re bleeding…”  
Lexa looked down and touched her wound as if she needed to check a second time.  
“It appears so…”  
They didn’t have time to talk much about it since more guards came their way. Four from the elevator and three from the last room. They swung back to back, ready to take on the fight. Clarke took Lexa’s gun while Lexa drew her swords.  
Clearly, they had for order not to kill them this time. Otherwise they’d be dead stuck in the middle of the corridor like this. They probably wanted to avoid a shortage of blood supply as it was all going away. But it was going to cost them this war because it wasn’t a war, it was a Revolution and Revolutions can’t be won by oppressors.

 

The ground started moving under their feet and Clarke was able to throw one last glance at Lexa before the whole floor collapsed, separating them


End file.
